Practice has new home
The staff and providers of the office have been working out
of two locations.
AUBURN – From the outside, it looks almost cozy.
But inside the new home of Family Health Care Associates is a sprawling, state-of-the-art medical office complex.
“We wanted to keep the feel of a small family practice,” said Dr. Michael Rifkin, one of the partners of Family Health Care Associates and one of its five on-staff doctors. “The concept was to not look institutional.”
The $1.7 million building has clapboard siding, a graduated, gabled roof and brick entryway. Inside, there are vaulted ceilings and lots of big windows to bring in the sunshine.
As attractive as the new building is, it also performs an important function: uniting one medical practice that had been operating at two locations. The practice was renting space at 10 Minot Ave. in Auburn for 17 years and at 287 Main St. in Lewiston for the last three years, an arrangement that fractured staff and providers.
“It’s good to be back together again,” said Rifkin. The practice moved to its new Stetson Road location last week.
It also expands the office space from about 9,000 square feet at two locations to 12,000 square feet under one roof. The building contains 21 examination rooms, offices for nine medical providers, two nursing stations, a conference room, laboratory, communications center, employee lounge as well as other offices for billing and support functions. It also has an electronic tracking system that allows the medical staff to tell at a glance where a patient is in his or her visit (waiting room, examination room, etc. ) The complex is designed to enhance communication among the staff and patients.
“Medicine is a customer service business,” said Rifkin, smiling. “I didn’t know that in medical school.”
The new building is owned by Central Maine Medical Center; Family Health Care Associates is its tenant. CMMC was also the landlord at the group’s Main Street location, so when Family Health Care members wanted a larger facility, they approached CMMC, according to Donald Leaver, CMMC vice president.
Rifkin said he and his partners, Peter Elias and Charles Burns, looked at more than a dozen sites before settling on the Stetson Road location.
Work began last October. The grounds are landscaped and there are picnic tables out back to allow staff to enjoy the more rural location. It’s a stark change from the Minot Avenue site, which shook each time the the train rumbled by on Maine Central Railroad tracks, according to Rifkin.
He noted that the new facility accommodates the practice nicely. There are no plans to expand it further.
“We’re not set up to grow,” said Rifkin. “We’re about where we want to be.”
The practice has approximately 15,000 patients.
One aspect that the new building will allow is more educational outreach. Rifkin said he and his partners are particularly concerned with the amount of obesity they see in the community. Their concern prompted the hiring of Susanne D’Angelo, a dietitian, to the medical staff.
She has undertaken a no-gimmicks weight-loss program for patients, requiring weekly weigh-ins – an easy task at the new facility. And the conference room can be used for nutrition classes.
Rifkin said that on the last day at the Minot Avenue office he thought about paying homage to the building that had been the practice’s home for so many years. But then he thought better of it.
“I realized it’s not the building, it’s the people – their positive energy and spirit,” he said. “That’s what makes us who we are as a practice.”
Comments are no longer available on this story